Instagram has become one of the most highly active sites on the web. With the amount of content on it and the many genres and sub-genres, it is a very exciting platform to use. However, if you have just begun and want a quick start to gain followers quickly or you’ve not been as active to gain followers, there is one thing you will need: an Instagram bot.

What does follow for follow means?

Follow for follow is a code known to social media users which means you are attempting to follow a users in order for them to follow you back, or otherwise you will unfollow. You make this known usually by typing follow for follow on your profile or by using hashtags such as #f4f or #followforfollow.

This act benefits both parties, as you both grow your followers base. Having more followers make your account more appealing to others, which will result in gaining more followers organically.

Usually, once you reach your target followers, you begin to unfollow the users you followed. Since Instagram doesn’t notify you when a person unfollows you , it means your act will go unnoticed and you will keep the majority of the followers you gained. To do this manually meant you had to spend hours a day finding and following people. Nowadays there are better and faster ways to do this, by using Instagram automation ( Instagram bots).

How Does Instagram Bots Work?

Many people have started using bots or, more technically speaking, Instagram automation.

Instagram bots allow users to like, follow, share and comment. Since individually doing all these actions will take up too much time, bots are used. They work by asking you to set your target audience via hashtags or specific accounts, and they then begin automatically interacting with accounts that fall within these lines. The bot also unfollows accounts that do not follow back during a specific time period. Here is a comprehensive list of all that Instagram bots can do:

Auto follow

Auto like

Auto comment

Follow for follow

Unfollow

Delete Instagram posts

Follow for Follow Using Bots

Follow for follow on Instagram, as we mentioned earlier, is one of the best ways in which the bot can be used to increase your following. While it does mean following people on Instagram to increase activity on your account, it is done to make sure some of them follow you back as well.

With a bot, all this is very simple to do. In fact, it does not require any work from you at all. Just enter your preferences and the bot will follow accounts for you. There are a number of benefits for using a bot to perform these functions, and this is especially true for the follow to follow function:

Saves time like nothing else. It practically asks you to do nothing and does everything for you

Connects your account with more accounts, bringing more traffic than humanly possible

Keeps working all day, even when you’ve called it a day

This is a very easy service to utilize, as it requires only a simple download

While most bots cost up to $40 a month, there are some that are budget friendly

Risk with Automation

Using bots on Instagram is unfortunately against its Terms of Service and, upon detection, will result in temporary suspension or even a permanent ban from the site if harshly abused.

Another risk with automation is related to following people. Instagram only allows an account to follow 7500 accounts, which means crossing this limit will also result in an action against your account. This means that you can only follow 160 accounts per hour and with automation, it is almost always touching the limit. Moreover, the number of follows allowed decreases if your account has an unusual amount of traffic on it.

However, all hope is not lost. There are other ways to increase activity on your account, whether you’ve just started using Instagram or you’re looking for more. These ways include various strategies that are not against Instagram’s Terms of Service and have shown great results.

Being Careful with Automation

Despite the risk of getting your account closed, there are still a lot of people who have used the bots successfully and avoided detection. This can be done in the following ways:

Only use one bot at a time. This is a must because using more than one bot will generate a suspicious amount of traffic on your account, definitely increasing your chances of getting suspended.

Use bots that offer private proxies with the service, a proxy acts as a middleman between your account and Instagram, this way Instagram wont connect your account with others using the same bot, even better if you find a service that offers proxies from your country.

Keep an eye on the account, if you get soft ban ( you can’t do actions for 24 hour) stop and use less aggressive speed.

Stick to daily and hourly limits, these limits change every now and then and also depends on your account’s size and age.

Be patient. The bot is working to locate actual people behind these accounts which will not happen at the swipe of a finger. Remember, you do not want random accounts following you but have no traffic on your account. This happens when accounts have no similar interests.

Figure out who your target audience is and create content accordingly. This is an important step as it defines your brand and keeps the account active. For the best results, have at least 25-35 active hashtags that you use to bring traffic to your account.

Even if your bot is doing this for you, remember to unfollow to keep your account below the radar. Having a ratio of 2:1 of your followers and followings is sign of an unsuspicious account.

Make sure to go onto your account from time to time and like or share a post. This will keep you away from being detected.

Communicate with people yourself as this will keep you from being detected as well.

Doing the Work Without Automation

If you do not want to risk getting your account closed, you can replicate the follow for follow technique yourself in this way:

Follow big accounts. This is true generally as well, but it works best if you follow big accounts that are in your niche. While it doesn’t necessarily mean that bigger accounts will definitely follow you back, although that has happened, it will encourage other followers like yourself looking to grow their accounts to follow you. When this happens, you should return the favor by following back because this will have a ripple effect.

Follow accounts that follow big accounts in your target niche, they are already interested in similar content so they are more likely to follow you.

Post interesting content that will make people comment and like your posts. This might not seem like an important action in the grand scheme of things, but this keeps your account active and encourages people to respond. The best times to post on Instagram are between 2 pm and 5 pm as statistics show that this is the time Instagram is most active. Also, offer like for like Instagram. This will also boost account activity.

Remember to not go overboard with this. Give people enough time to follow back. Keep your following habits paced or else you will have to spend time unfollowing a lot of accounts.

Once you have followed a significant number of people and have given them enough time to follow you back, you should take some time to unfollow those who haven’t done so. While this is quite a tiring practice, especially because Instagram separately asks you if you are sure you want to unfollow someone, it is important to keep your account active and as further from the limit of maximum follows as possible.

Another thing to remember when unfollowing accounts is that there is a limit on this. You can only unfollow 160 people in one hour, and this is excluding any follows you might have done in the same hour, in which case the number will be less. This estimate depends on the account, bigger older accounts have more limits.

Other Techniques

If you are not looking to spend hours upon hours to increase your Instagram followers, we don’t blame you. Here are some other ways that can save you a lot of time and will not put you at risk for suspension:

Hiring a virtual assistant can be a great way to increase your Instagram following, especially if you are working on building a business brand. While it may be a little time-consuming for you to find one who fits your brand and works well with you, this will save a lot of time in the long run.

Create ads to boost your account activity. While it may seem like people don’t pay attention to ads, there is a large following out there that do watch ads and find themselves clicking on various links through ads. This is a great economical way of generating more traffic to your account because it is cheap and completely legal. Also, there are many that utilize this feature to bring more activity to their account and it has proven to work.

If you cannot afford a virtual assistant, there are many marketing tips and tricks for you to learn from and market your account yourself. You can do this by trying out a number of marketing strategies, such as changing your look and bio and using hashtags in a particular manner. Other ways include creating content that attract the highest audience and tailoring your posts in various ways to suit your brand.

Promote your Instagram account on other social media accounts and encourage people to visit it. This can be a helpful way to start getting new followers, especially if you have a lot of activity on one of your other social media accounts.

If you are new to Instagram, pick a niche for your account. It does not have to be very specific, but it helps know what kind of pictures and videos you will be posting. If you already have an account, begin following accounts with content related to yours. The chances are that these accounts are the ones that will follow you back because of your similar interests. One way to identify these accounts is to use the hashtag feature. If you are a business account, follow your competitor’s followers. This might sound weird, but it has worked well in the past.